Valedico hac Anima
by Kelsey
Summary: Now that Willow is stopped, the Scooby gang must face the latest crisis: Tara's funeral.


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Valedico hac Anima

by

Princess McPhee

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Disclaimer: Not mine.

Author's Note: I realize that Willow probably wouldn't be this sane after 'Grave', but this is how I saw Tara's funeral, anyway. So there!

Summary: After the events of 'Grave', Tara's funeral is the next thing on the list 

of Scooby crises. 

Translation: My Latin is very, very, very bad. Translation is rough, to say the least. But: _Valedico hac anima_- Bid farewell this soul  
_Licet illa invenio quies a aestras estas humus- _May she find peace in Summerland  
_Licet illa noero noster amor mansurus- _May she know our love will always endure  
_Licet illa invenio quies- _May she find peace   
_Existo beatus_- Blessed Be.

Rating: G

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It's quiet. Too quiet. Willow would be babbling by now, trying to fill the void, under normal circumstances. But the circumstances are anything but normal, and no one is ready to listen to her.

She doesn't want to talk anyway.

Everything's black. 

It's dark outside, because Spike wanted to come. He'd always treated Tara okay, Willow realized, and she didn't begrudge anyone the chance to say good-bye to her lover. Tara had always brought out the best in everyone.

The grass is dark, because the moon only shines a little sliver of a piece in the edge of the sky. The people are only shadows, their clothes black and their heads bowed. Buffy, Anya and Spike can be found by the flash of their light hair, but Willow, Xander, Giles and Dawn blend into the dark. 

Tara died on a new moon. The time when everything should renew itself, and yet, ironically, the time when Willow's world was shattered so violently to pieces. 

Not that it would have been any better if it were a full moon.

The casket is open, because Willow wants to see her beloved's face as long as she possibly can. She knows Tara's soul isn't in that flesh and blood vessel anymore, but she can't seem to let it go, just the same.

Tara's hair fans out in a halo on the little pillow. She's dressed in a long, white, sleeveless evening gown. The neck is high, like a mock turtleneck, and it looks like it ought to have arms, but it doesn't. Her feet are bare. Tara was a free spirit, and Willow wants the ritual of her passing from the world to celebrate in that same freedom and belief.

Runes decorate the wood of the casket above her head. Willow used a dictionary to pick them out, so she hopes she got them right. If she did, they say 'Merry meet and merry part', or some rough approximation of that. Exactly what Tara would want people to be thinking.

Tears come to Willow's eyes as she thinks about how her beloved would behave if it were her day. Tara would be sad, she knows, but she'd try to make the best of things, as she always did. Try to remember the Willow she loved, rather than mourning the corpse in the casket. Willow tries, but she can't do that. She's always been a bit more melancholy than her fellow witch, but her tendency towards 'glass half empty' recently is showing itself more and more in the presence of her grief.

The wind picks up the loose fabric around Tara's ankles and gives it a little swish. Willow doesn't put it back. The wind has every bit as much right as she to arrange Tara's final resting. After all, all on the earth is a child of the Goddess. And her beloved was so close to a goddess herself...

Buffy appears on one side, Dawn hanging on her shoulder, looking how Willow feels. Her eyes are red and puffy, her posture is limp, and she moves slowly, as though every limb is a thousand times heavier than it ought to be. Willow knows how she feels.

Xander pries himself gently away from Anya, and comes to join them. Dawn looks at the reunion of grief and leaves, knowing she shouldn't be here, not now. This is for the three of them. The three original Scoobies, comforting each other in their times of need. They and Giles, the only ones who've been a part of this since the beginning.

An old car roars in the distance, but Willow doesn't react. It slows, and then stops, and Wesley steps out of the car, the somber atmosphere having an immediate effect on him. He moves slowly to greet Giles, and the older men speak in hushed tones. Willow wonders where Angel and Cordelia are, but she can't really get up the energy to care, even as the hope in Buffy's eyes is replaced with a deep disappointment.

The car parks and a young black man steps out of the driver's seat. He holds his arm out for a reed-thin brunette, and they join the mourning at the very edges of the group. Uncomfortable, but clearly sympathetic, they simply stand and watch.

Moments pass, Giles and Wesley's whispering becoming more and more pronounced in the silence. The high Priestess Willow talked to promised to be here at midnight. She wishes she could do the ceremony herself, but she doesn't trust her powers. 

That's an understatement if she ever heard one. She'd laugh if she thought it was funny. 

She's never been more afraid of her power in her life.

The girl who stepped from Angel's car walks up beside Xander and moves slowly, reverently, towards the coffin. She looks at Tara's body with a neutral expression, than at Willow. "She was beautiful," She says softly. The witch doesn't know who she is, but apparently the girl knows about her.

Willow nods and bites her lip. She's already crying, she doesn't know why she tries to stop more tears from coming, but she does. Buffy wraps her arms around Willow and the redhead cuddles into the embrace. Xander moves his larger form behind her and cradles both of them in his strong hug. Willow feels squashed in the middle, but she doesn't mind. It's almost comforting.

A car the witch recognizes pulls up to the edge of the cemetery. She stiffens. Her parents, here to berate her about her lifestyle again. She can't handle this right now. So, when Buffy breaks away from their hug and goes determinedly to intercept the Rosenbergs, she doesn't protest.

There's a heated conversation carried out in low tones. Then Buffy steps reluctantly aside, and Willow buries her face in Xander's shoulder. He steps around a little, so that he's between the witch and her parents. He nods a greeting civilly enough, but his body language is clear: 'Stay away from Willow.'

Unexpectedly, Mrs. Rosenberg has tears in her eyes, and when Xander sees this, he isn't quite so sure. Patting Willow on the back and asking her silently to look up, he nods at her parents. Unsure what to expect, but knowing she has to face them sooner or later, Willow steps shakily out of her best friend's embrace.

Without saying a word, her mother steps forward and reclaims her. Shocked, Willow doesn't return it for a moment, but then she dives into the unexpected closeness of her mother's hug. Buffy and Xander hover on the edges of the family reunion, ready to break up anything that looks like it's causing Willow more pain.

Pulling back a little, Willow's mother smiles sadly, and then walks them over to her father. "We're so sorry for you," She says. Her father just nods.

Willow's confusion shows on her face, and her mother clarifies her statement. "Oh, Willow. We love you! And even if you don't live a Jewish life, or practice a Jewish religion, we'll always be there for you when you're hurting."

Something about the statement causes alarm bells to go off in the witch's head. "This is about Tara. Not me." Her tone is emotionless.

Her mother just nods, a little confused herself.

"You can't come here and reclaim me just because Tara's gone. You haven't been civil to me for two and a half years, and now you think you can just show up at my _lover's_ funeral and expect it to be okay?" She doesn't miss her mother's wince at the word 'lover', which she purposefully emphasized.

Reaching out an arm for Xander and Buffy, she returns to her place beside Tara's coffin, just looking at her face. She looks so peaceful, not like she did when she died.

Willow will always remember those words that haunt her incessantly. " 'Your shirt.'" In that high, surprised tone. 

And then her lover had dropped dead.

And Willow had tried to end the world.

The Priestess shows up when she promised. Forming a circle out of friends, she teaches them the Latin chant they will use to bid Tara farewell. Willow's parents are still hovering on the edges of group, but nobody asks them to join. Giles asks Fred and Gunn to join, as the witch has learned their names are, but they decline. Wesley, however, takes his place next to the other ex-watcher, somber as always.

Holding hands, they chant.

"_Valedico hac anima. Licet illa invenio quies a aestras estas humus. Licet illa noero noster amor mansurus_."

Then the group breaks hands and turns to the east. "_Licet illa invenio quies!_" They shout. South, then west, then north. "_Licet illa invenio quies! Licet illa invenio quies. Licet illa invenio quies_."

Dropping to their knees, they crouch around the grave, one hand on the ground, one on Tara's coffin and murmur, in perfect unison, "_Existo beatus_."

And Willow weeps, because Blessed Be her lover may, but exist, she never will again, not the way that Willow knew her.

And Buffy weeps, because she lost a friend and confidante, and she's seen too many deaths in her short life, her own among them twice.

And Xander weeps, because as much as he didn't know Tara very well, he values human life highly, and Tara was one of the special ones.

And Dawn weeps, because Tara always treated her like one of the gang, never tried to hide things or coddle her, and because she always kind of thought of the gentle Wicca like another big sister.

And Giles weeps, because he's always felt that the Scoobies are his honorary children, and he loved Tara as much as the next person in the circle.

And Wesley weeps because it's always so sad to lose another life in the fight against evil, even if he didn't know her.

And Anya weeps because she doesn't understand why people have to die at all.

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